Up to 10 points adrift in the polls and with 7 November now approaching like a high-speed train, Al Gore is really struggling, in the nation and here in his own backyard.

As George W. Bush was wooing redneck America by playing an isolationist card, his rival was last night still resisting growing pressure to let loose the 'alpha dog' - Bill Clinton - on the last stretch of the campaign.

Gore has distanced himself from Clinton's dubious moral legacy while claiming his share of the credit for America's economic miracle. Last week, the New York Times reported that Clinton was hurt by his neglect.

But on Friday Gore made it clear that he remained his own man. He said: 'The President is my friend and I appreciate his help in the campaign.' But he added: 'This is a campaign that I am running on my own.'

In Tennessee, aides insist that Clinton is a liability. But increasingly the strategists in Washington and local candidates in the concurrent congressional race are anxious to use all the pulling power they can muster, especially if it comes from a person like the President.

They are anxious to deploy a man they know can command enormous affection in crucial working-class states and can get out the vote whose indifference, they fear, may let Bush ride to victory.

Sources say Gore's campaign HQ is under 'very significant pressure' to bring on the President, and that he himself is straining at the leash to become involved. 'As everyone knows, it's what he loves more than anything,' says one. 'That's the Vice-President's biggest worry of all.'

Gore and Bush seem convinced that the contest is to be won by spinning, packaging and flooding the airwaves. Yesterday the New York Times splashed the guidance from a Bush aide that the Republican candidate was planning a new 'division of labour' in the Western alliance. The US would pull its troops out of the Nato peacekeeping operation in Kosovo and concentrate on the Persian Gulf, Asia and other troubled regions.

Bush has repeatedly said that peacekeeping and humanitarian missions are undermining US defence capability. Gore, in sharp contrast, believes America should be even more proactive.

In fact, the mission in the Balkans accounts for a little more than 1 per cent of the Pentagon's $280 billion budget. The Bush camp's move is clearly a considered gesture, part of a skilfully orchestrated surge towards the winning post that has the Gore camp rattled.

Writing in Salon magazine, Joan Walsh expressed the Gore side's puzzlement and incipient panic. 'This election should be a Gore rout... The Clinton-Gore administration has presided over the longest economic boom in US history.'

Instead, she notes, Bush is 10 points ahead: the reason is that while Bush has embraced the legacy of Reagan, Gore has stood apart from Clinton - an 'unconscionable strategic blunder'. Gore is even struggling here in the state where his family tree is rooted. It was his senator father's power base and home to the tobacco farm where Gore spent childhood summers away from Washington DC.

Gore's statisticians in Tennessee calculate that the Vice-President can win this election even if he if loses the bastion of votes down in Florida. But these sums depend on two things: holding on to the key swing states of Michigan, Ohio, Missouri and Pennsylvania - and as an absolute banker the state in which he was partly raised.

But suddenly the political rock of the Blue Ridge Mountains feels more like the shifting silt of the Mississippi. Since the Civil War Tennessee has been a swing state. This year it is as much up for grabs as ever. A poll last week even put Bush ahead by a nose.

'It's no surprise it is a close race,' says Greg Wanderman, executive director of the Tennessee Democratic Party. 'It's been an increasingly Republican state for the past 10 years, mostly in the suburbs. But I think Gore will win, if the base turns out.'

Walsh expressed the feelings of a growing number of Gore advisers when she concluded: 'Clearly, it's time to let the big dog out, to let Clinton be Clinton. The only way for Gore to win the White House is to have the current occupant stump for him from here to election day.'

Where they stand on the issues

BUSHTax: Proposes $1.3 trillion tax cuts over next 10 years.

Budget: Plans to use $46 billion, one quarter of the budget surplus, to fund tax cuts.

Social security: Wants to invest funds on stock market to boost pensions.

GORE Tax: Promises $500bn targeted tax cuts over next decade.

Budget: Pledges to balance the US federal budget, pay off national debt and create $300bn reserve 'for a rainy day'.

Social security: Wants to spend $300bn modernising Medicare over 15 years.